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Fencer Intel
high 8.8

CVE-2026-31221 json

PyTorch Lightning load_from_checkpoint has an insecure checkpoint deserialization

published 5mo ago modified yesterday also EUVD-2026-29505 , GHSA-75m9-98v2-hjpm , PYSEC-2026-3043 , PYSEC-2026-3972

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 32%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

PyTorch-Lightning versions 2.6.0 and earlier contain an insecure deserialization vulnerability (CWE-502) in the checkpoint loading mechanism. The LightningModule.load_from_checkpoint() method, which is commonly used to load saved model states, internally calls torch.load() without setting the security-restrictive weights_only=True parameter. This default behavior allows the deserialization of arbitrary Python objects via the Pickle module. A remote attacker can exploit this by providing a maliciously crafted checkpoint file, leading to arbitrary code execution on the victim's system when the file is loaded.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-31221 updated cvss 8.0

pytorch-lightning: PyTorch-Lightning: Arbitrary code execution via insecure deserialization of checkpoint files

  • Red Hat AI Inference Server rhaiis/vllm-cpu-rhel9, rhaiis/vllm-tpu-rhel9, rhaiis/vllm-cuda-rhel9, rhaiis/vllm-rocm-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI) 3 rhelai3/bootc-cuda-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-rocm-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-aws-cuda-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-gcp-cuda-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-azure-cuda-rhel9, rhelai3/bootc-azure-rocm-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-vllm-gaudi-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
5mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 32% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • notion.so https://www.notion.so/CVE-2026-31221-35d1e1393188815f8db7c4fd08076639 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
OSV 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi pytorch-lightning
<=2.6.0
no fix listed
pypi lightning
<=2.6.0
no fix listed

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-502 Deserialization of Untrusted Data

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.